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Western Sugar: Three new steps being taken to address odor in Fort Morgan

New cooling tower should lead to water recycling at the plant, cooperative official says

By Jenni Grubbs

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
07/19/2017 05:44:54 PM MDT

Towering piles of sugar beets awaiting processing have long been a common sight in Fort Morgan by the Western Sugar Cooperative factory, but those piles were even bigger over the past winter and spring due to increased capacity at the plant. But the combination of production issues, warm weather and an already-low-quality beet crop led to more sugar left in the water discharged from the plant to the ponds and more food for the bacteria that then create a foul smell. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times file photo)

Western Sugar Cooperative is taking three new measures to deal with the particularly foul odor that has frustrated Fort Morgan residents for quite a few months, according to Heather Luther, vice president and general counsel.

One of those is using a very strong commercial deodorizer on the ponds, called Odor Blast, she said, adding that it was "installed Monday." The second is adding a cooling tower for reusing water from the plant, and the third is a new filtration process.

These are the latest in a succession of ideas the plant has been trying to seek to lessen and prevent the odor, which is caused by sugar content left in the water being stored in the plant's ponds and bacteria feeding on it and then producing smelly waste from it.

What was frustrating, she said, was that several of the things they tried previously did not work. The unsuccessful attempts included adding aerators and percolators to create bubbles in the ponds and speed up evaporation, along with adding various other deodorizing products.

"It's not that we're not doing anything," Luther said, although those earlier measures did not really solve the overall problem. "Ultimately, we said, 'That's not working. We've got to add more steps.'"

Western Sugar's goal is always for all or as much as possible of the sugar content in the beets to be removed and turned into its sugar products. But "the perfect storm" of successive problems occurred in fall 2016 and spring 2017 at the plant, Luther said.

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A combination of production issues from problems with new equipment installed at the plant, a lower-quality beet crop and a warm winter that never really kept the beet piles frozen all combined led to the plant putting far more sugar than usual into the ponds. That led to the conditions forming to create that extra potent smell.

At that point, it became about how to lessen and eliminate the smell. Using deodorizing products for this purpose is not something new in the sugar industry, Luther said. In fact, the plant had tried multiple other deodorizers in recent months trying to lessen the smell, Luther said.

The latest one, Odor Blast, is a "different technology," she said, but it is a "spray deodorizer" that was used successfully by one of Western Sugar's competitors.

"We're hoping it will be successful for us," Luther said.

The second step is installing a cooling tower at the plant, which was underway Wednesday, on the bank near the ponds, she said.

Water from operations would go into the cooling tower so that it could be reused at the plant. Currently, the water coming out of the plant is too hot to be reused and has to be discharged in the ponds for cooling and evaporation.

Having that same water go into the cooling tower could allow it to get down to the temperature needed for reuse in the plant, Luther explained.

"We won't have to introduce new water," she said. "It will help us recycle that water."

It also could mean not adding very much or even any more water to the ponds in coming weeks and months, even though some aspects of production - not full production - will continue at the plant through the rest of the summer. That production schedule will only have a two-week break in September, according to Luther.

And any water that would be added to the ponds likely would have far less sugar content in it due to the third step being taken at the plant.

"Two weeks ago, we changed our filtration process," Luther said.

While she did not get into the technical specifics of that change, she said it should result in less total water coming off the beets and less sugar remaining in that water.

"The filtration process should help greatly reduce the amount of sugar added to the ponds," Luther said.

Between the latest three steps Western Sugar has taken, the hope is that the odor in Fort Morgan will be greatly reduced or even eliminated, but now everyone has to "wait and see if it is working," she said.

Still, the waiting for the smell to lessen and go away has not been easy for city residents, who mainly are aware of what their nose senses. They do not necessarily know what the plant is doing with the hope that it will result from attempts to mitigate the odor issue.

City Manager Jeff Wells does get updates about this, but he smells the same things as the people who are living in, shopping in and visiting Fort Morgan. He recently expressed frustrations with the odor coming from the plant at a city council meeting, as well as the city's dependence on Western Sugar to deal with the smell.

But Wells said Wednesday that he has spoken with Western Sugar officials recently and heard about these latest steps being taken at the plant.

"We appreciate any efforts made by Western Sugar to fix the problems that have been ongoing for the last several months," he said. "I hope they can fix the issues that negatively impact our citizens' quality of life and the community's reputation. I know that they are working hard to fix the problem."

For those residents wanting the city to do something about the smell, he reiterated that the city does not having any authority over the neighboring plant.

"Because the plant is located in the county the city has very limited authority to address the problem," Wells said. "The state and the county have the regulatory authority to address the major issues impacting county residents that live in the city."

Now the waiting game is underway to see - or at smell - whether the latest measures taken by Western Sugar to deal with the odor problem will work.

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